UPDATE - 26 July 2006Well plenty has changed with the pups but only in relation to their homes
and their successes. At two and a half years old all are hale and healthy. Sorry
not to have updated this page in so long but life has a way of taking over at
times. There have been a couple of health scares with the pups but nothing that
turned out to be neospora related and all health issues are currently resolved.
Arbee may not look the best in the rear but there is no paralysis and although
he hocks in badly compensating for the damage done by the neospora he received
an excellent hip score and has subsequently sired two strong healthy litters.
The only girl who may be bred in the future is Maggie who was clear. Even so
will be a lot of fingers crossed and a heap of anxiety if in fact her owner does
decide to roll the dice. As I've found though breeding is often a roll of dice
and Mother Nature always gets the final say - thankfully her final say on my
babies seems to be a big OK.

UPDATE - 30 April 2006The pups are now 15 weeks old

All the puppies have
homes with S. Great Gatsby aka Busby making his home with Glen and Jean
in New Zealand, S. SVGGQT aka Cutie aka Barrister aka
Barry will be heading off to Malaysia in a couple of weeks, S. SVGGKT aka Katie aka Five is making herself very much
at home with Rachel and Tony (Kodust RRs), S. SVGGLC aka Elsie aka
Kara has settled in with the Brays and Arbee staying home here with
me. I would very much like to thank all the wonderful people who have offered me
support and encouragement. Now for me it's a matter of holding my breath and
waiting until we take the pups off the clindamycin - by all accounts nothing
should happen at all but I think I'll be holding my breath on these puppies
forever!

I have been learning
a great deal about Neospora and would like to offer my thanks to the vet and
parasite experts who have so willingly given of their knowledge and skill to
help me both understand and deal with this litter. This is not an exhaustive
list but at the top as always is my wonderful vet - Christine Kidd of Manly Rd
Veterinary Hospital and her assistant Kelly Irving; Dr Glen Coleman and Shirley
Turner (University of Queensland); Professor John Ellis (University of
Technology, Sydney); J.P. Dubey (ARS USDA); Professor Pat Conrad (UC Davis) and
Christina Wistrom (UC Berkeley).

Three of the
unaffected girls (Girl 1 - Starridge SVGGEV aka Maggie, Girl 3 -
Starridge SVGGKC aka Zahra and Girl 6 - Starridge SVGGLE aka Jamilla
have gone to their new homes in Gladstone, Armidale and Brisbane respectively.
The last unaffected girl who had been homed the would-be-owners decided it was
all too scary and opted not to take her. I do understand their point of view -
hey, I find it all very scary too :-) Starridge SVGGLC aka Elsie aka
Pet is the cutest kid and I am not rushing to find a home for her - in fact
with her white roaning out now I may very well keep her. Apart from anything
else she is certainly the best mover of all the girls and always was.

Similarly Starridge SVGGRB aka Arbee aka Big Boy
is way too cute for his own good and may very well end up making his home here
at Starridge. Starridge SVGGQT aka Cutie and Starridge SVGGKT aka
Katie aka Five will all hopefully find wonderful homes in due time.

All the pups are being kept on clindamycin until they are 4
months as a precaution. Latest advice was to keep them on the meds for 8-10
weeks so at 16 weeks they should be all clear. The pups can not be bred from but
otherwise are normal active happy puppies who looooove their food. Contrary to
all the advice received the pups have dramatically improved - Arbee can now gait
quite naturally before showing a hitch in his stride and favouring his right
rear leg, Cutie and Five can gait and even when they do limp it is very slight
and you need to watch closely to see their slight favouring of the affected leg.
Bodes well for these guys to continue to improve as the percentage of good
muscle mass increases in proportion to the scarred area/a left by the neospora.

So it seems there is life after a neospora litter - lots of
heartbreak and lost breeding potential as the three unaffected girls should by
rights all be in the ring and not too many people are interested in showing a
pup that ultimately shouldn't be bred from :-( but the pups themselves will go
on to lead normal healthy lives and that is far more important than showing or
breeding any day. It is still the recommendation that the pups not be bred
because there is no guarantee that the neospora are actually dead - they may
simply have hidden themselves in tissue cysts and would 'reactivate' when the
rejection mechanism is turned off as occurs with pregnancy. The rejection
mechanism must be turned off or bitches will 'reject' the foreign DNA (of the
sire) that constitutes half of the pups. My pups, like many adults already do,
may carry tissue cysts with no symptoms or attack by the neospora as their
maturing immune systems can now deal with eliminating the neospora.

ORIGINAL POSTINGPhotos can be very deceiving!

When I look back over the photos from the last
8 weeks this eagerly anticipated and long awaited litter appears to contain
nothing but healthy beautiful puppies but this litter may very well be the last
whelped at Starridge RRs - here's the full story!

At around 4.5 weeks of age Boy Nr 2 (Busby)
was walking very strangely (like an arthritic old man) and failing to thrive.
Initial diagnosis by the locum vet was aspiration pneumonia and he was treated
with Clavulox. He failed to significantly improve and in fact went downhill. The
following afternoon, back to the vet, and the diagnosis was upgraded to possible
hydrocephalus ('water on the brain' - an excess of cerebral-spinal fluid). Back
to the vet the following day for neurological evaluation and measurement against
his healthy brother. Busby's neurological responses were so slow as to be nearly
non-existent in some instances. He came home to be 'watched' and see what
further developments would occur. Over the next five days until his return to
the vet for follow-up consultation with a neurological specialist and
confirmation of the diagnosis he improved markedly every day until it was
apparent that the diagnosis was wrong - something had attacked his central
nervous system and he had fought it off. We thought at that point we would never
really know what that 'something' was however events have subsequently
transpired that have certainly identified it.

Busby's brother (currently being called Arbee)
at one day before 6 weeks appeared to have dislocated his hip - even though he
was in no pain. The again locum vet (why do pups always do this at night and on
weekends?) kept Arbee to x-ray him but decided due to the lack of pain that a
more likely diagnosis was an attack by neosporosis caninum. This is an extremely
nasty parasite about which not nearly enough is known. Arbee's blood was sent
for titer testing to see whether he had antibodies for neospora and he was put
onto AntiRobe (clindamycin) - one of the very few drugs to have any affect on
neospora. The next day Arbee's sister (Girl No 5) seemed to have developed a
slight limp. The following day the pups were given their 6-week vaccinations and
health checks by my vet (Christine Kidd - Manly Rd Vet Hospital). Other than the
slight limp and strange 'dislocation' the pups were all given an A-okay rating,
nevertheless Christine prescribed clindamycin for all the pups on a 'better safe
than sorry' basis until Arbee's test results were returned. We were
recommended to test Mtarni and another pup as well to give a better picture of
what might be happening. (Neospora can be transmitted to pups trans-placentally
from the dam if she has a chronic infestation - neospora usually does not affect
adults as they're immune systems kill off or send the neospora into hiding
without the adult showing any symptoms. Original neospora infestations occur
from eating raw beef! All I can say on that one is that I don't BARF and I
certainly never will!! - freezing can, but is not guaranteed to, kill
neosporosis caninum) I ultimately decided to test Mtarni and all the pups. At
time of testing it was noted that Girl 4 was now limping.

Arbee's results finally returned the day after
the pups hit 7 weeks. He had a titer of 1:256 which confirmed neospora. The
remainder of the tests were returned two days later with Mtarni 1:400, Boy 2
(Busby) 1:25600 (no that is not a mistype - he really had to pump out the
antibodies to kill off his infestation and did it without virtue of help from
the clindamycin - what a fighter!!), Girl 1 was negative, Girl 2 negative, Girl
3 negative, Girl 4 was 1:6400, Girl 5 1:1600, Girl 6 negative. So I had half a
litter full of neospora - now my real heartache began as I tried to get answers
to so many questions but just seemed to get more questions instead. Because
neospora can be passed via placenta and appears to 're-activate' on pregnancy
the first advice received was, if the girls of the litter survived they should
never be bred, similarly Mtarni should not be bred again. Boys can not transmit
neospora so as long as they survived the infestation then they would be fine.
Reading about neospora on the web and talking to the experts at Queensland
University (many thanks to Shirley Turner and Glen Coleman for their patience
with my many unanswerable questions and for their expertise in answering what
could be answered) was scary in the extreme. Neospora causes miscarriages in
cattle and dogs. It is often mis-diagnosed or not diagnosed at all especially
with dogs. It is suspected that many bitches who 'reabsorb', or whelp dead pups,
or have pups that fail to thrive may actually have neospora (remember no
symptoms in adults!). Bitches who do have neospora can whelp completely normal
litters, smaller litters than anticipated or affected litters like mine. If the
bitch is bred again it is, as one long time breeder put it to me and as the
literature backs up, a 'crap shoot'. The second litter may be completely normal,
smaller or affected - because it is passed trans-placentally there is no way of
knowing whether neosporoses will pass the placental barrier, or if they do pass
through then in what numbers, whether they will kill the pup/s in-utero or the
pup/s will be born with a neospora infestation that activates at birth or
anything up to four months later. If a bitch puppy from the original affected
litter is bred she is in the same boat - may have a litter that is completely
normal, smaller or affected.

Neospora is usually fatal or affects the pup
to the degree that euthanasia is the only option. For any pup that has been
affected the level of damage done at the start of treatment is usually
permanent. I have been incredibly lucky to this point to have had great vets and
thus been able to have a quick response with clindamycin saturation of the
litter. The affected pups have also been extremely lucky as the damage all
appears to be muscular rather than nervous system injury. Neospora attacks
muscles (leaving scar tissue) and the nervous system (that can result in loss of
function to the limbs (paralysis) or loss of function to any or all of the brain
functions). All the pups are doing well and in fact there has been considerable
improvement (Arbee still being the worst affected as he moves with a
one-step/one-bunny hop gait - however he has gone from the dislocated hip look
to a dislocated stifle look which is definitely an improvement). Long term
prognosis is good for all the pups :-)

The affected pups will be remaining with me
until they are at least 4 months - they will be re-tested and if the antibody
levels are stable or lower then they will be assessed for their ability to lead
normal lives. Busby already meets that criteria (he is a full-on precocious
boy!) and I'm quite certain the girls at least will also easily meet that
criteria, and will then hopefully find wonderful homes (actually Busby already
has!) My initial advice on the unaffected pups was that the clindamycin be
continued for two weeks (they will pass that landmark shortly) and then they can
be homed. However, that advice, like much that I have received, may be getting
revised.

I believe it is very important for all
breeders to be aware of the dangers of neospora infestations. It is impossible
to know if, or when, a bitch picks up neospora but I would strongly recommend
that you keep neospora in mind if you have problems similar to those mentioned
above - neospora can be so easily mis-diagnosed and yet early treatment is vital
to save the lives of affected pups and give them the chance of a normal life.